Author

Tag Archives: Valdosta

On Wednesday night’s edition of NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams offered what his network would later describe as “clarification” about an incident that had allegedly taken place more than a decade earlier. In reality, the network anchor recanted his claim that he had been aboard a military helicopter as it was shot down while he was covering the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. and coalition forces. He admitted he had been lying for 12 years.

Unlike some people, I wasnt’ surprised to learn about this news. Why? Because I had dealt with him before — almost 14 years ago — while serving my country in uniform at Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta, Ga. Yes, it’s only about 30 minutes downwind from the site where they filmed the swamp scenes in the 1972 movie, Deliverance.

In the spring of 1991, Williams was a rising star, then working as evening anchor for WCBS-TV, CBS’s flagship TV station in New York City. At the same time, I was an Air Force captain serving as chief of public affairs for the 347th Tactical Fighter Wing, then the host unit at Moody.

U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Boitz

Operation Desert Shield was about to turn into Operation Desert Storm (a.k.a., “the first Persian Gulf War”), and Williams wanted to do an up-close-and-personal story about the folks who would soon be flying their F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft into harms way over the skies of Iraq. The folks at the Pentagon sent him to our base deep in the heart of South Georgia.

In addition to arranging interviews with fighter pilots and others at the base, we were told to provide Williams with a ride in the backseat of an F-16. Before anyone rides in the back of a fighter jet, however, he has to have a physical exam and complete pre-flight training that includes learning how to get out of the jet in the event of an emergency. Part of that training was something called “hang and harness” training.

Hang and harness training is just like it sounds. A person hangs from a harness to get an idea of what it feels like to use a parachute. Standing on a platform several feet off the ground, Williams had a parachute pack strapped on his back and was connected by cables to a mechanical rigging device suspended from the ceiling.

The gear worn by Williams included two main straps, each of which extended from his shoulder area, down across his chest and under his crotch where they passed by his “family jewels” –- one strap on each side –- and continued up his back side where they connected with the bottom of the parachute sack.

Despite being told more than once by his Air Force instructors that he should tighten those straps until they were very snug, the anchorman ignored the advice. When the time came for him to jump from the platform to the ground below, simulating the feel of a real jump, the anchorman’s less-than-snug straps suddenly became snug –- and in an oh-so-painful way.

Though tempted to describe his appearance as 50 shades of gray, that wouldn’t describe how he looked. More accurately, his skin color had taken on a strange blend of greens and purples as he gasped.

These days, I can’t even watch him on the NBC Nightly News without thinking back to that painful moment which, by the way, he failed to mention when the story aired. Thanks for the memories, Williams. Thanks for the memories.

UPDATE 2/5/2015 at 6:47 a.m. Central: Below is Williams shamefully recalling his big lie on Late Night with David Letterman in 2013.

My first crime-fiction thriller, The National Bet, went on sale last week, and I thought I’d offer another excerpt to go along with one I shared earlier this month.

“K-man! K-man! Wake up! We’ve gotta go!” Waking to those words, Master Sergeant Josh Kastens knew the day was about to get serious.

A twelve-year veteran who had reached his current rank almost two years ahead of his peers, Josh was a member of the elite Air Force pararescue fraternity known as “PJs.” Assigned to the 347th Rescue Group at Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta, Georgia, he was pulling his first six-month tour in Somalia even as most Americans didn’t realize members of their country’s military had been deployed to the African nation since 2007.

Being rousted out of bed at “oh-dark-thirty”—2:15 a.m. local time on this occasion—usually meant an aircraft was down and a pilot needed rescue—or, in PJ vernacular, “saved.”

During the briefing, Josh learned the mission would take him and his crew from their base near Berbera on the coast of the Gulf of Aden to an insurgent stronghold almost fifteen miles west of Saylac and ten miles south of Somalia’s border with Djibouti.

By 2:30, their HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter was airborne. Estimated time to target: twenty minutes. Outside the chopper, the early morning temperature was a stifling ninety-seven degrees Fahrenheit. Inside, the heat was even more oppressive as engine noise drowned out everything but the headset chatter between crewmembers.

Two gunners stood ready at their GAU-2/B miniguns, while Josh and his PJ partner, Staff Sergeant Stu Duckworth, sat with their legs hanging out opposite doors, M-4 carbines across their laps. Just in case.

Josh had made six saves during previous combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, but something about this new battlefield gave him the creeps.

Flying fast and low at a ten o’clock heading, the chopper pilot followed instructions from controllers aboard an E-3B Sentry Airborne Warning and Control Systems aircraft flying high above, and they reached the downed pilot’s location without incident.

Due to the latest round of Pentagon budget cuts that had dramatically reduced the number of rescue aircraft in theater, only one chopper participated in this mission. And, thanks to misguided Rules of Engagement that no longer allowed gunners to use preliminary fire to clear landing zones of bad guys, every LZ was considered hot.

Approaching the LZ, the pilot took his chopper down at a steep angle while making a number of irregular turns designed to make it more difficult for anyone to shoot his bird down. Then, after dropping the PJs in a clearing, he climbed back into the sky. The entire process took less than forty seconds, and his chopper took no incoming fire. Now, he and his crew would keep watch over the area as the PJs went to work.

Equipped with night-vision goggles, the PJs reached the downed pilot quickly after spotting him crouched behind an abandoned truck some fifty yards north of the LZ.

“Are you hurt?” Josh asked the pilot, Captain Bud McGowan, who showed no signs of serious injury but was understandably nervous.

“No, but I think there are some bad guys out there,” the pilot replied, motioning with his eyes toward the east. “I heard them shouting to each other, so they can’t be too far away.”

Captain McGowan’s F-16C Fighting Falcon had lost hydraulic pressure in its lone engine. As a result, he had to eject in an area only a few miles away from an enemy base where, a short time earlier, members of the terror group al-Shabaab had been on the receiving end of one of his laser-guided five-hundred-pound bombs. Now, instead of being the hunter, he’d become the prey, hunted by dark-skinned men now less than half a mile away and closing fast.

After attaching a harness to the pilot, Josh radioed the chopper to return for an immediate pickup. As the word “copy” left his lips, a single shot rang out and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sergeant Duckworth—“Duck” to his friends—reach up with his left hand to the side of his head. A large chunk had been ripped out of the PJ’s helmet, but it didn’t appear as if the bullet had penetrated his partner’s skull. It did, however, cause him to be disoriented and have a hard time keeping his balance.

As Josh half-carried his partner toward the makeshift LZ, Captain McGowan fired his 9 mm Beretta in the direction of the attackers who had cut the distance between themselves and their prey in half.

“How many are–” Josh began to ask Captain McGowan before stopping in mid-sentence as an AK-47 round grazed the left side of his neck. Then another round hit him inches above his right hip. Adrenaline surging, a quick assessment confirmed neither wound was life threatening.

Seconds later, the chopper—their lifeline to the world— appeared out of nowhere from over a ridge to the south. After the helo’s right-side gunner spotted the rebels through his night-vision goggles, he unloaded a barrage of 7.62 mm rounds on the enemy positions and declared over the radio, “Enemy destroyed!”

Such an outcome had been made possible only after a U.S. Marine Corps three-star general had taken over as commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and succeeded in convincing his superiors in the chain of command to allow crews aboard casualty- evacuation choppers (a.k.a., “CASEVACs” or “dustoffs”) to defend themselves in hot LZs.

Upon hearing the E-D announcement, the chopper pilot dropped his aircraft to the ground within twenty yards of the PJs and the aviator they had come to save.

Ignoring his own wounds, Josh partnered with Captain McGowan to load Sergeant Duckworth onto the chopper. As they began lifting him up to the floor of the chopper, three more gunshots rang out in quick succession and Josh felt more pain. Looking down as he began to collapse, he saw his left leg nearly severed above the knee.

For what seemed an eternity, Josh watched through his night-vision goggles as his own warm blood poured from the leg, yielding a bright-red thermal-infrared signature. Less than a minute after he was hit, he lost consciousness.

Responding to the burst of unexpected gunfire, the chopper’s right-side gunner quickly located and eliminated its source, another Somali sniper who seemed to appear out of nowhere some sixty yards northeast of the LZ. But it was too late for Josh.

While both PJs stayed true to their warrior fraternity’s creed, “That Others May Live,” only one survived.

The National Bet isn’t a military fiction novel, but the action in the book begins in East Africa and makes its way to several locations across the United States. One of those locations, tiny Effingham, Ill., is home to several of the book’s characters, including the father of the fallen PJ.

You can learn more about the book here and order a copy of the book here.